


de mon cœur qui bat

by zjofierose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam is a shit boyfriend, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Emotional Infidelity, First Kiss, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Infidelity, Light Angst, M/M, Meddling Friends, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Character Death, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Romance, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Shiro has a competency kink, sorry Adam it's nothing personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:14:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: The death of Shiro's grandfather brings him back to the small town he'd watched disappear in the rearview mirror a decade ago. Nothing's changed except for him, and there's even less of a place for him here now than there was when he left. Thank goodness he doesn't want there to be - right?
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67
Collections: Sheithmark 2021





	de mon cœur qui bat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Coralie Clement song, La Samba de Mon Coeur Qui Bat. 
> 
> Adam is much more of an asshole in this fic than he is in the show for the simple reason that I needed a villain. Sorry, Adam. But also, there's not that much of him, and it's all in the service of bringing Sheith together. 
> 
> Written for the Sheithmark event, uwu!
> 
> **see end note for details on the infidelity tag

Shiro is, admittedly, following too close. 

In the city, though, it’s sheer self-defense - if you don’t follow closely enough that anyone elsewhere would call it shameless tail-gating, you’ll never get anywhere. Not with the number of people merging in front of you or diving across your lane to an exit or cutting you off just for the sheer joy of it. It’s just how he drives now, and how everyone else around him drives. 

Or, at least, how everyone he’s used to having around him drives. 

To be fair, he was not expecting the pick-up in front of him to break quite so abruptly. Or for it to be on account of a turkey. 

He hears the sound of a honk from the oncoming lane followed by an outraged gobble, and gives in to the urge to rest his forehead against the steering wheel for just a moment. There’s the sound of a door slamming on the truck in front of him, the one whose bumper is now halfway up his hood, so he drags in a deep breath and puts on his most charming smile. Time to deal with this like the professional adult he supposedly is.

“Hi,” he starts, rolling down his window, “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t-”

The words die in his throat as he takes in the face that bends down to peer at him. 

“...Shiro?” The hair is tied back into a neat ponytail and the face is longer, more mature than the last time Shiro saw it eight years ago, but those eyes haven’t changed a bit.

“Keith?” Shiro coughs to cover the way his voice cracks on the name. “Keith! I, um, I wasn’t expecting-”

“I should have realized you’d be back in town,” Keith interrupts him, then throws a glance at the dented hood of Shiro’s car. “Sorry this is a poor welcome back.” He rubs at the back of his neck and looks so genuinely dismayed that Shiro waves his hands hurriedly.

“No, no! This was absolutely my fault. I shouldn’t have been following so close.”

Keith turns back to him with a grin. “It was definitely your fault,” he agrees easily, and Shiro snorts. “But it looks like your car got the worst of it, so fair’s fair.”

Shiro pulls his face into mournful lines. “And the turkey, doc?” he asks, “will it live?”

Keith just rolls his eyes. “You can’t possibly have forgotten how hardy the Gilman turkeys are in ten years. The turkey is fine.” He chuckles. “Didn’t even get a feather out of place. Your car, on the other hand…” Keith squints down at Shiro’s expensive black sedan. “Looks like mostly body damage. Your engine’s still running fine. Bring it down to my uncles’ tomorrow, I’ll take a look at it.”

“Oh, Keith,” Shiro starts, “you don’t have to-”

“Didn’t ask,” Keith informs him blandly. “See you tomorrow. Come around noon.”

He’s gone before Shiro can voice another protest, sauntering back to his truck with the same self-possessed rolling gait he’s always had. His shoulders are broader, Shiro can’t help but notice, and he’s taller now, too. A late growth spurt, and Shiro watches him climb into the cab of his truck and wonders how close Keith is now to Shiro’s own height. 

Keith catches him watching and gives a cheerful wave into the rearview mirror as he drives off. 

It’s only the honking from behind him that jolts Shiro out of his contemplations and back onto the task at hand, namely, driving down the main street of the town he hasn’t been back to since he burned rubber past the town limits sign a decade ago. 

He sighs, and finds a parking spot. It’ll be better to just get this over with.

\---

The key is under the potted plant by the door just as it always has been, and Shiro takes a moment to shake his head over what a small town this is. He’s honestly half surprised the door is even locked at all, but the mechanism clicks when he turns the key and then he’s in, the smell of the place knocking him straight back to childhood. He spent hours here, day after day after school, doing homework, reading comics. It’s like walking into a time machine.

Books. Worn books with battered covers, the smell of petrifying paper and pounds of dust wafting through the air mix with the faint lingering scent of rice from his grandfather’s lunches and drops of spilled tea that have no doubt firmly inset the old, thin carpet of the bookstore. 

It was his grandfather’s pride and joy, this store, but all Shiro can see is how the back shelf of poetry has collapsed; how the magazine section is literally in knee-high stacks with only the narrowest of pathways back to the single bathroom; how the spiders have built their webs in every single corner of the place. He sighs. It’s like a tomb, this, even more than he expected, and it hits him hard and fast, a tidal wave of grief catching his ankles and flipping him end over end until he can’t find the surface.

His grandfather is gone.

\--

The house, when he gets to it, isn’t a lot better than the store. The Holts, who live next door, who have lived next door for all of Shiro’s life, have cleaned up the place a bit, so that he doesn’t have to deal with rotten produce or trash that needs to go out. It’s almost like his grandfather has just stepped out, except it’s somehow a little too sterile for that. There’s no cup of half-drunk tea on the counter, no morning paper folded to the sudoku puzzle on the kitchen table.

It’s only been two weeks since Shiro got the call that his grandfather hadn’t come over to the Holts for breakfast like he had every morning since Shiro left, the call that told him that when Colleen Holt went to check on him, she’d found him gone, peacefully in his sleep as far as anyone can tell.

Shiro’d come back on the third day for a small memorial when the ashes were ready, just him and the senior Holts. He’d driven back that night, all six hours of it, rather than stay alone in the house where his grandfather had died. 

But, now, here he is. 

He breathes out and steps inside, toeing off his shoes and lining them up beside the door with the force of unbreakable habit. “ _ Tadaima _ , Jiji,” he whispers, but there’s no response. 

He turns on all the lights. It’s wasteful, and he feels silly doing it, but he wants the house to be filled with light; he can’t bear to see the dark corners, doesn’t want to walk down the empty hallways. He’s only going to be here for a few days; maybe a week or two at most. The electric bill can take it. He’s just here to clean everything out and get it ready for realtors, to take the few things he might want back with him to the city, and then to wash his hands of this small town for the last time. That’s all. 

It won’t take long. There’s nothing left for him here.

\--

He and Adam had fought about it. They fought about everything these days. First, Adam had wanted to come - Shiro has never brought him back to where he grew up, had never introduced him to his grandfather, and they’re engaged - isn’t it time that he came home with Shiro? 

No, said Shiro, that’s not home. He had left for a reason, and all he wanted to do was get in and get out, to get things wrapped up and settled and then be done with it all for good. 

In that case, Adam decided, Shiro should just have someone else handle it all together. Why go back at all? They have services for this; someone else could clean up the house, someone else could empty out the bookstore. All Shiro would have to do would be to sign some papers, and then they would just send Shiro the money when they’re done. 

Shiro didn’t have the words to explain that he needed the closure of doing it himself. They’d gone to bed angry as they did so often anymore. He knew the anger was a protection against his own grief, but he couldn’t put it aside any more than he could decide not to go back. So, he emailed HR about taking bereavement leave and vacation, set his email auto-replies and handed off his current cases to his colleagues, and packed a suitcase with enough for ten days.

_ Think about what you really want _ , Adam had said as he left,  _ and if you’re there too long, don’t bother coming back. _

\--

He lies awake that night in his childhood bed and stares at the glow-in-the-dark stars overhead. It’s so quiet in the country - even in town there’s hardly ever a car going past after about nine pm, and the lights in the neighbors’ houses all go off by ten.

He’d held out till eleven before forcing himself to turn out all the lights and make his way to his old bedroom. 

It’s just as he left it when he moved out after graduation: a few peeling posters on the wall, abandoned high school textbooks on the bookshelf by his old desk. He’s not sure he could even get his knees under that desk at this point. His bed is still made with the thread-bare old blue plaid sheets he’d always used, and the shag carpeting is still a mottled chocolate brown that conceals a multitude of sins. 

Shiro strips down and does a round of calisthenics in the hope of burning off some of the anxious energy that’s settled behind his heart, burning in counterpoint to the looming sadness that threatens to pull him under as soon as he lets his guard down. 

He takes a quick shower and brushes his teeth; pulls on clean boxers and a t-shirt and, feeling like an idiot, plugs in his old rocket-ship nightlight. He can’t remember the last time he used it; probably before he hit his teens. He’d left it behind when he’d headed off to college at seventeen, wanting to make sure he presented as mature as he looked. 

Three full years of college including summer school and he’d graduated with high honors and gone straight to law school, finishing in two years and a half years, passing the bar, and signing with a prestigious firm at his graduation party.

It’s where he’d met Adam - two young new hires in a new town with no one they knew about, trying to convince the senior members of the firm that they were worth keeping around. 

Probably, Shiro thinks in hindsight, they should have broken up when Shiro got picked a promotion over Adam. Adam had said it didn’t matter, but it clearly had, and Shiro can’t blame him for it - he’d have felt just as shitty about it if he’d been passed over in favor of someone else. But they’d decided to be grown-ups about it, and had kept on. 

And then Shiro’d needed surgery. 

It hadn’t been too far into their admittedly already-slightly-strained relationship when Shiro’s doctors had determined that the best way to address the worsening muscles spasms and atrophy in his arm would be to amputate, which would also hopefully slow the further spread of the disease. He could get a state-of-the-art prosthetic from the technical college in town, and it could add another twenty years onto his life, at a guess. 

It was a no-brainer, at least from Shiro’s end, and he’d signed off on it without even mentioning it to Adam. Adam, who’d found out by noticing the note on Shiro’s calendar. 

In retrospect, Shiro was maybe too used to handling his condition on his own, because Adam had been blind-sided and distressed by the thought of Shiro undergoing a major and voluntary surgery, and while he had been supportive through the actual procedure and recovery, the rift between them deepened. Shiro didn’t take him seriously as a partner, Adam claimed, wouldn’t think of the impact of his actions on others. It was his body and therefore his choice, Shiro countered, and all he wanted was someone to be there for him.

Things hadn’t improved, but they’d already moved in together by that point, and Shiro had met Adam’s family, and they still worked together, and.

Shiro sighs into the darkness and drags a hand down his face. 

And now, here he is, alone in his childhood home, estranged from the person he’s meant to be closest to in the world. 

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

\--

The first day at the bookstore is long and hard, and Shiro’s not sure he accomplishes much of anything. 

He goes through the cash register and locates all the account books; contacts the few distributors his grandfather bought new books from; calls the utility companies to arrange for the utilities to be cut at the end of the next billing cycle (he will be done before then, he has to be done before then); and then loses himself in a pile of comic books he uncovers in the back. 

He does not take his car to Marmora Motors.

By the end of it, he’s sweaty, dusty, and - because he forgot about lunch - hangry. He orders pizza and eats it sitting in his grandfather’s recliner while he watches sports on the TV. Jiji would hate everything about what he’s doing, and he feels guilty and defiant in equal measure. It’s like being a teenager all over again, he thinks, and sighs.

The next day he decides he needs a better plan. The first thing should probably be inventory. No doubt most of the second-hand books are worthless, but there may be some gems in there, and he’d hate to accidentally recycle a first edition or something that would have some value online. And the newer books can maybe be returned back to the publishers? He honestly doesn’t know; his grandfather had never talked much about the business to him, and he’d never asked. College had always been the plan for Shiro, from both of them - he knows now that his grandfather had hoped that he’d come back after college, move back to town and live at home and help out. But Shiro hadn’t known that then, and so had never bothered to pay attention to the minutiae of his grandfather’s business.

He regrets that now, but there’s no help for it. Thus, he’s hip-deep in crafting magazines in the weird little room that he thinks must’ve once been a large closet when the door chimes. 

“We’re closed! Read the sign!” he shouts, and gets no response. It’s annoying, really; all the regulars certainly know his grandfather’s passed away, so this must be someone new in town, and if they can’t read the Closed sign on the door, they’re invariably going to be a pain to deal with.

He extricates himself from the magazines and heads to the front. Probably he should lock the door while he’s up there, make sure no one else can just wander in.

“Hey,” Keith says as Shiro steps into the short hallway. “You didn’t come by yesterday, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to come get some lunch.”

“Oh.” Shiro blinks. Right on cue his stomach growls, making Keith chuckle. “Um. Sure, that’d be great.”

“Great,” Keith nods, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you need to do anything here before we go? I can wait.”

“Nah.” Shiro waves a hand, notices it’s smeared with ink from the old magazines. “Actually, let me wash my hands. Then we can head out. Did you have somewhere in mind?”

Keith shrugs. “Anywhere’s good with me. You pick.”

Shiro thinks it over as he ducks into the tiny bathroom. The wallpaper must be from the seventies, and it’s peeling from the ceiling. The disrepair of the whole store is unlike his grandfather, who, while being an avowed collector, was also stringent about cleanliness and keeping things in good nick, even if they were cheap or minimalist. It makes Shiro sad, and he drags his mind forcibly back to the question of food.

“Is Darella’s still open?”

“Of course,” Keith calls back from the hallway. “I think it’s mostly Lila running it these days, but it’s still there.”

“I could go for a veggie burger,” Shiro says, wiping his hands on his shirt. The paper towels are out; he’ll have to grab a roll from home. Pizza last night and a veggie burger today, he’s going to need to start running again soon, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

“Okay.” Keith gives him a brief smile and tilts his head at Shiro as he emerges. “Shall we?”

Shiro claps his hands together and grabs his jean jacket, slinging it over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says, “let’s go.”

\--

The veggie burger and the time with Keith are the best decision he’s made in weeks, Shiro decides. Maybe months. Possibly even years. 

There’s something about Darella’s veggie burger recipe that just can’t be replicated anywhere else - it’s got texture and flavor, and it’s moist and tender. Topped with fried onions and avocado and a slice of fake cheese, it’s one of the few things that Shiro truly misses about his hometown. 

Keith watches him and sips a coke.

“What,” Shiro asks, fishing a napkin out of the dispenser and wiping at his face.

“You  _ murdered _ that thing.”

Shiro just grins and licks a drop of barbecue sauce off his thumb. “I’m a growing boy.”

The expression on Keith’s face is completely flat, and then the possible implications of what he’s said catch up to him and Shiro starts to sputter.

“I mean. I didn’t. I-”

Keith busts up, laughing with his whole body, just like he did when they were teenagers. His eyes squint up and his head goes back, and Shiro laughs just watching him as he clutches at his knees and shakes. 

“I  _ am _ sorry,” Shiro says earnestly when Keith has calmed, “I didn’t mean to…” he waves a hand.

“It’s fine,” Keith grins. “Just, you should’ve seen the look on your face.”

Shiro sticks out his tongue, and Keith just shakes his head, still grinning. There’s something in Shiro’s chest that loosens to see it, and he eats another sweet potato fry just to give his mouth something to do.

\--

“Here,” Keith says as they’re leaving the diner, “gimme your keys.”

“What? Why?”

“So I can fix your car.” The  _ dumbass _ isn’t said, but it’s heavily implied in the accompanying eyeroll.

“What? No. I’m the one who rear-ended you. I should be paying to get your truck fixed, not letting you fix my car.”

Keith snorts. “Betsy’s just fine; she’s got steel bumpers. Your car, on the other hand, is modern, and crumpled like a tin can.”

“Like it’s designed to,” Shiro says, slightly defensive.

“Of course,” Keith blinks at him, and oh yeah. Shiro’d almost forgotten that while Keith will tease and joke, he never actually insults. Not like Adam, whose biting repartee is ostensibly polite, but with an incredibly bitchy subtext. “But you don’t want to be driving it like that. It’s not safe. I can bang the dents out of the hood, order you a new bumper, and make sure your engine’s fine. It won’t take more than the afternoon.”

“Keith, I don’t know…”

“Not asking, Shiro.” Keith holds out his hand. “Keys.”

Shiro sighs and digs in his pocket. “Fine,” he says, “promise you’ll let me know what I owe you?”

“Sure,” Keith says with an ease that betrays the lie, and Shiro rolls his eyes. “I’ll bring it back tonight.”

“Take however long you want,” Shiro tells him, “I can walk home from here anyway, and the weather’s good.”

“Okay. I’ll bring it back tomorrow, then, and we can get lunch?”

It’s the first hint of uncertainty Keith’s shown since Shiro ran into him, literally, two days ago. It’s surprising, and he doesn’t know what to make of it, so Shiro just nods, and watches the slow smile spread across Keith’s face again.

“That’d be nice,” he says, and Keith nods, shoving Shiro’s keys in his pocket before he saunters off down the street.

Shiro watches him go, then shakes his head and turns toward the bookstore. 

He’s got work to do.

\--

True to his word, Keith turns up the next day at lunchtime with Shiro’s keys and a car that looks like new. He utterly refuses to say what Shiro would owe him, but does allow Shiro to buy him lunch. 

It becomes a habit.

Shiro plows through the endless sea of books, making notes, taking numbers. He emerges dusty and smudged with printing ink to see Keith’s wry smile and join him for a meal. He returns to the bookstore to continue his work until the sun goes down, then heads home to eat take-out or a microwave meal, watch a movie, and head to bed. 

Sometimes he talks to Adam.

Mostly he doesn’t.

Once Keith’s friends, most of whom were once Shiro’s friends, join them for lunch. It’s a little awkward at first, since Shiro had cut ties pretty brutally when he left, but everyone’s polite, and things relax with food and conversation. 

It’s also awkward when they assume that Shiro and Keith are dating, but that’s easily enough explained, which Keith does with an eyeroll and a change of subject. Shiro’s grateful for the ease Keith shows with it all, effortlessly including Shiro in the banter while casually catching him up on changes in town or interpersonal developments he’s missed. It’s different from the sort of camaraderie he has at the office, where even people who genuinely like each other are constantly in competition. 

It takes some adjusting, but he likes it.

\--

It becomes clear two weeks in that this whole process is going to take a lot longer than he had originally thought, so he calls Adam to let him know. 

“How long?” Adam’s voice is tight. “I do actually miss you, you know.”

Shiro sighs. “I miss you, too. But I don’t know. The bookstore is taking longer than I thought it would, and I haven’t even started on the house yet.”

Adam makes a noncommittal sound. “Well. Keep me posted, I guess.”

“I will.”

It’s not a fight, but it leaves Shiro feeling restless and grumpy. He wasn’t lying, he misses Adam’s company, but if he’s brutally honest, he’s not sure the “Adam” part of that sentiment is all that important. It might be just that he misses company, period. He sees Keith every day for lunch, which has been a completely unexpected bright spot, but beyond the occasional delivery person and the weekly trips to the grocery store for coffee, milk, and bananas, that’s the only direct human interaction he’s getting. 

Even worse, or at least, even more confusing, is the fact that the company is basically the  _ only _ thing he’s missing. He doesn’t miss their tiny, modern, apartment; he doesn’t miss his commute; he doesn’t even miss his job. He feels like he’s in another world, on an abrupt and all-consuming departure from his own reality, and it’s...not relaxing, per se, but it is comforting. Comfortable. 

He shakes his head at himself, and flicks on the TV, flipping through channels until he finds a sports game, which he puts on mute and watches, the colored uniforms clashing back and forth across the field. He decides to root for the red team; they seem scrappy, and their goalkeeper has a black ponytail that reminds him of Keith’s.

_ Keith _ . 

Shiro lets his mind linger. He hasn’t mentioned Keith to Adam, and it feels weirdly dishonest, even though there hasn’t really been a reason to bring him up. But Adam knows about Keith, at least in the abstract. Knows that Keith was Shiro’s high-school sweetheart, knows they broke up when Shiro left for college and didn’t stay in touch.

It feels like something that happened to someone else when he thinks about it now through the haze of time. They hadn’t actually known each other that long, Keith two years behind him in school, even if only one in age, but when they’d gotten together it had just seemed right. 

He hasn’t let himself think about it in years, but he’s on his second beer of the evening and has no plans besides watching the rest of this game and going to bed, so he kicks his feet up and lets his mind wander.

Keith had been so little when they first met; small in stature, but fierce in temper and wit. Shiro had been a fifteen-year-old junior and Keith a fourteen-year-old freshman, but they’d become fast friends courtesy of the Holts. When Shiro had screwed up his courage to ask Keith to homecoming, Keith had beat him to the punch, asking him before Shiro could get the words out. 

Together, they were a study in extremes. Keith, with his huge family of parents and uncles and cousins, all living together on a sprawling ranch in the country; Shiro, alone with his grandfather in their little house in town. Keith, held back a year for delinquency; Shiro, skipped up a year for being a prodigy. Keith, reckless and half-feral, but with the kindest heart of anyone Shiro knew; Shiro, cautious and reserved, but with a cutting ambition and no patience for anyone or anything that stood in his way. 

Both of them precocious and loyal, both of them wanting more than what was in their current grasp.

It had been eighteen of the most formative months of Shiro’s life, but then he graduated and got accepted to a law internship in the city the summer before college, and he couldn’t say no, he  _ couldn’t _ . 

In the end, they’d broken it off. Keith still had two more years of high school, and Shiro was going to be hours away and working to get through school as fast as he could. It didn’t make sense to try to hang on. There were no promises that Shiro could make of coming back, and it was unfair to ask Keith to wait around for what Shiro wasn’t willing to guarantee. 

Shiro finishes his beer and watches the red team score through half-closed eyes. 

It had hurt. More than he had expected, honestly. Not that he hadn’t known he loved Keith - he had known it - but rather that he had assumed it was a kind of puppy love. That was what all the adults in his life had said, that was what everything he read or saw implied. It would be sad, they would get over it, and in a few years they would look back and laugh at how seriously they’d taken themselves.

He did, eventually, get over it. He thinks he did, anyway. He went to college and worked so hard to graduate early that he didn’t bother dating anyone. Grad school saw the occasional convenient hook-up, but nothing serious until Adam. 

And Keith… well, Shiro had deliberately lost touch. Easier, he’d thought then. A clean break, a fresh start. 

For the first time he’s starting to wonder what it might have been like to do it differently.

\--

“You should hire Romelle to help you out at the store.”

“I...what?” Shiro tears himself away from where he’s been staring at Keith from across the yard. He’s had three shots at this party, combined with two beers, and they’ve all gone straight to his head. He hasn’t been drunk since his graduation from law school; he’s lost his touch.

“Romelle,” Matt says patiently. “Hunk’s girlfriend. Keith’s cousin. Smart girl with a big mouth and big-”

“I know who she is,” Shiro interrupts. Keith is doing a keg stand, but Hunk and Lance aren’t holding any of his weight. He’s just doing a handstand on the keg while they crowd his legs so that he doesn’t lose his balance as Pidge holds the nozzle to his mouth. It’s possibly the single hottest thing Shiro has seen in his life. “I thought Hunk was with Shay?”

It doesn’t help that Keith is shirtless, and Shiro has a full view of his rippling, wiry, musculature as it glows under the bright backyard lights. It’s the end of October and really too cold to be shirtless, but it doesn’t look like Keith feels the chill.

“It’s a both/and situation. But you should hire her to help with the bookstore,” Matt says again, and Shiro forces himself to turn and focus. 

“Why?”

“Because,” Matt’s voice is patient, but his eyebrows are not. “She’s really smart about marketing and social outreach, and she’s got a business degree. They have her doing the book-keeping down at Marmora Motors, but it’s only part-time. She’d love a challenge.”

Shiro squints in confusion. “But I’m not keeping the bookstore? I’m going to sell it.”

Matt’s face falls. “Oh,” he says. “I’d assumed since you and Keith are back together, you’d be sticking around.”

Shiro feels a little floaty. He sucks in air over his teeth, but it doesn’t help. “Keith and I… aren’t together?”

Matt stares, then shakes his head and slaps Shiro on the shoulder. “Well. Okay, buddy, if that’s how you wanna play it. I won’t say anything.” He chugs the rest of his beer. “You should still get Romelle to help you fix the place up before you sell it, though. She’s a beast, and you’d get a better price.” He grins. “I need another beer. You want anything?”

Shiro shakes his head. “I’m good.”

He watches Matt head down toward the feeding trough that’s been filled with ice and beers, but gets distracted by Pidge’s sudden appearance at his side. 

“Hey, big guy. How’s it going?”

“Fine.” Shiro clinks his bottleneck against hers. “Think I’m a lightweight now, though.”

She chortles and gives him a once-over. “Only in alcohol tolerance, my friend. Pretty sure only Hunk or Keith could pick you up.”

“Keith could pick me up,” Shiro mutters, then flushes. “Or probably literally any of Keith’s uncles,” he says more loudly.

“Nah,” Pidge flaps a hand dismissively. “They’re all too old. Don’t wanna throw out their backs.”

“Don’t want to throw out whose backs?” Keith asks from right beside them, and Shiro wants to wake up to that voice. Preferably after a night of hearing it gasp and moan.

“Your uncles,” he gets out, and Keith laughs. 

Shiro has always loved Keith’s laughs; they’re rare, not because Keith isn’t a happy person, as Shiro has learned. He’s both happier and calmer as an adult, which Shiro supposes is par for the course, but full laughs have always had to be almost startled out of him, breaking past his native reserve into unbridled joy.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, still chuckling. “They’re getting pretty delicate in their old age.”

Shiro gazes out at the collection of enormous men that call Keith nephew and resists the urge to giggle hysterically. They’re all bigger than he is, significantly so, and Shiro hasn’t been small since he was a child. 

“ _ Delicate _ ,” he says. “Yeah.  _ Fragile _ .”

Keith turns to him and smiles, and Shiro feels like the world stops turning. There’s a fleck of beer foam at the corner of Keith’s mouth that Shiro wants to lick away. 

Someone calls Keith’s name, and he wanders off into the yard, beaming around him with more good cheer than Shiro’s ever seen him publicly display.  _ What would it be like _ , his traitorous mind thinks,  _ to have that attention all on him, only for him? _

He knows what it would be like, is the thing. He had it, and then he turned it down. And then he left.

Suddenly the world speeds up again, lurching and a little too fast. 

Shiro sets his beer bottle down on the deck. “I think I need to head home,” he says, and Pidge looks at him in concern.

“Yeah, you look a little green there, big guy. Lemme grab the keys from Matt, I’ll drive you.”

\--

He lies in bed that night and thinks about Keith. 

They’d never fooled around that much, Shiro too conscious of Keith’s younger age and Keith too insecure to push Shiro on it. They’d done a lot of kissing in the first year, endless make-outs with no goal beyond closeness and shared pleasure. The second year they’d made it through a couple of proverbial bases, graduating when Shiro did to mutual hand-jobs, but calling it there.

He still remembers the heat of Keith’s mouth on his, the twist of his fingers and the softness of his skin. 

He wants it again. 

Shiro rolls over and punches the pillow, burying his face in it and screaming. 

He can’t do this. He  _ can’t _ . He’s not staying, and he can’t start something with Keith if he’s just going to leave again, that’s not fair to Keith, and it’s honestly not fair to himself, either. 

He has to put this out of his mind. 

\--

November brings the first of the rains, misty and damp but interspersed with days of highs in the 70’s and bright sun. He hasn’t heard from Adam in weeks, so Shiro doesn’t bother to mention it to him when he goes ahead and hires Romelle. He’s finally finished the inventory, but it seems clear that the place needs some renovation before it’s even worth putting on the market. 

He’s done some basic research, and it seems like the best choice is to sell the store, stock and all, and let someone who wants it buy the whole thing. Romelle does her own recognizance and agrees it’s as good a strategy as any, though she cautions him that there aren’t a lot of buyers out there for bookstores, used or otherwise. But, she says, it’ll sell better fixed up and with a demonstrated clientele, so he may as well put some work into it and open it up in the meantime.

For lack of any better plan, he takes her advice. 

Marmora Motors may employ most of the Marmoran family in some capacity or other, but there’s also Marmora Building, and then there’s the Altea branch of the family who run the town’s only design firm. Technically, Romelle is both a Marmora and an Altea, though Shiro can’t keep the various branches of the family tree straight, but regardless, she hooks him up with her cousin Lotor, who makes despairing noises at Shiro’s budget but is itching for a project bad enough that he agrees at length to take it on.

“You’re really investing in this whole thing,” Keith says one day at lunch, and Shiro makes a face into his cobbler.

“Yeah, I guess.” He shrugs. He doesn’t feel confident about the decisions he’s making here, but he doesn’t have any better ideas either. It’s not as if his grandfather had left a detailed plan of what he wanted to happen; Shiro rather has the impression that Jiji had never really considered his own mortality at all, preferring to believe in a never-ending existence of books and green tea. 

“I thought you were going to sell it?” Keith’s tone is cautious, and Shiro forces himself not to read into the cautious hope in Keith’s gaze. 

“I plan to,” Shiro tells him, and watches as Keith ducks his head to play with his straw. “But Romelle looked into it, and it’s easier to sell a business that’s established and turning a profit than one that’s been shut down, so…” he spreads his hands.

“Makes sense,” Keith agrees. “And it’s nice of you to let her and Lotor have such free rein with it. I know Lotor’s been wanting a project all his own for a while; this will be good for his portfolio.”

Shiro just shrugs. “They know more about it than I do. And I trust them.”

“You trust the locals?” There’s a glint of humor in Keith’s eyes, and Shiro snorts.

“Well, they can’t exactly make it worse, can they?”

“You better hope I don’t tell them that,” Keith grins, “they might take it as a challenge.”

“I was thinking, when I go back to the city, maybe I could just leave Romelle in charge of the whole thing until it sells,” Shiro says, watching Keith’s face carefully. The change is subtle, but there’s a faint wariness that’s settled into the corners of his mouth, and his hands are tense on his utensils. 

“You could do that,” Keith agrees. “She’d do a good job, and she’d love the chance.”   
  
“Yeah.” Shiro sighs. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, or if it’s making things better or worse. He’s not even sure if he’s trying to warn them both off or give them both hope, but he’s starting to think more and more that he’s not the only one spending a lot of time thinking about what they once were. What it feels like they have the potential to be again. “We’ll see.”

Keith just nods and ducks his head, cutting a bite from his omelett. 

Shiro eats the rest of his waffle, but he doesn’t taste a bite of it.

\--

Keith invites him for Thanksgiving, because of course he does. There’s a hundred ghosts of memories past circling his head as he pulls up, store-bought pumpkin pie in the back even though he knows Keith’s mom and uncle Kolivan will have baked for an army. 

He brings it in and lets Krolia kiss him on both cheeks, taking the pie from his hands and depositing it on a banquet table the length of the room. He endures a gauntlet of genial quizzing, backslapping, and occasional shovel talks from the pack of uncles, not even bothering to try and explain that the shovel talks are unnecessary. He knows they all remember what he did before; they’re entitled to their actions.

Dinner is an involved affair that lasts for several hours. Dishes are brought out; digestion time is observed between courses; drinks are bottomless, thanks to the multitude of small cousins tasked with waiting on the adults.

Through all of it, Keith is at his side.

The wine begins to catch him after the fourth glass, even with the amount of food he’s been drinking. Also, he doesn't think he’s imagining it, but Keith seems to keep touching him, and scooting closer to him. They’d spent the dessert course with what felt like Keith in his lap. 

He doesn’t know what to think about it, what to do about it, but god, he wants it.

He goes out back to clear his head, but only lasts a few moments in silence before a familiar figure settles beside him.

“Good day?” Keith asks, and Shiro can hear the banked heat in his voice. It’s a terrible idea, this, but he doesn’t have the will to deny them both any more.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “You know what, though?”

Keith turns his face to Shiro in the moonlight. “What?”

“I’ve still never seen  _ your _ place. You said you’r not still in the main house.”

A slow-blooming smile unfurls across Keith’s face ad he stands, grabbing Shiro’s hand in his own. “I’m not. And I’m allowed to bring boys up and shut the door.”   


“You don’t say,” Shiro says, and lets himself be dragged over to a garage. There’s a flight of stairs leading up along the outside, and a dim light glows from behind a curtained window above the garage proper. 

He stumbles on the steps, but it’s because Keith is kissing him already, mouth warm and demanding against Shiro’s own. He goes hard so fast he gets dizzy, lets Keith guide him carefully in through the doorway so he doesn’t hit his head, then slam him up against the wall. 

“I’m still not staying,” he gasps out, because he already knows he’s going to ruin this, that they’re going to ruin this, and he wants his cards all out on the table. He’s not staying, even if Romelle did make that suggestion about buying the cafe next door and knocking down the wall between them, even if he’d gotten lost yesterday in the new catalogs from the publishers his grandfather had used.

“I don’t fucking  _ care _ ,” Keith growls, shoving his hands down the back of Shiro’s pants and hauling their hips together. “We can agree to never speak of this again. But tonight, Shiro,” he pauses to lean back and look Shiro straight in the eye. “Tonight, I want you.”

“Yeah,” Shiro whimpers as Keith grabs handfuls of his ass. “Yeah, okay.”

It’s the last talking they do for the night.

\--

The doorbell rings on a Saturday morning in mid-December, and Shiro goes puzzled to the door.

“Hi, babe!” Adam grins at him from the doorstep, and Shiro drops his mug. “I thought I’d come surprise you for the holidays!” He glances around as Shiro bends to retrieve his mug and wipe at the spilled coffee on the floor with the hem of his sweatshirt. Thank god he was holding a travel mug and not a real one; he’s barefoot, and ceramic shards would have hurt. 

“You grew up here?” Adam asks, and Shiro nods mutely. “Kind of a dump, isn’t it? No wonder you moved to the city!”

It makes Shiro bristle even as he fights down the urge to shut the door in Adam’s face. It’s ridiculous, because he  _ did _ move to the city to get away from this place, and he  _ has _ called the town and the house where he grew more than one derogatory term, but somehow hearing it from someone else’s mouth feels different, feels wrong.

“Come in,” he says, instead of everything he wants to say, and Adam walks inside.

\--

“Come on, Shiro,” Adam whines later that afternoon, “surely there’s something to do around here. I haven’t seen you in months. I want to do something other than sit around your house going through old stuff.”

“Well,” Shiro says as patiently as he can through gritted teeth, “if you’d told me you were coming, maybe I could have prepared for it, and made some plans.”

Adam pouts, and Shiro’s not sure how he ever found it cute before. Right now it just seems immature and manipulative. 

“But I’m here now,” Adam says, “don’t you want to show me a good time?”

The sigh Shiro lets out ruffles the pages of the book in front of him, but he pulls out his phone anyway and opens his messages. 

_ Romelle _ , he texts,  _ is there anywhere romantic nearby that I can take someone on short notice? _

“I do want to show you a good time,” Shiro admits, and there’s some truth in it. Adam’s been a constant in his life for the last several years; there’s a history there, and much of it is good. “I’ll see what I can figure out.”

_!!!!! _ Romelle texts back.  _ You making a move?? FINALLY????? _

_ No _ , he replies, forcibly concentrating on not grinding his teeth.  _ My mostly-estranged fiance showed up unexpectedly. _

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Adam’s face is full of happiness as he leans in to kiss Shiro on the mouth. Keith was the last one who kissed Shiro there, and it hurts to have that erased. “I’ll go freshen up.”

_ Ohhhhhhh _ , texts Romelle,  _ ohhhhhhh boy. _

Shiro can’t help but agree.

\--

Romelle comes through with a small winery just outside of town. It’s new in the last five years, so Shiro doesn’t know it, and they don’t know him, which is a bit of a relief. It’s mostly quiet this early in the evening, but they have a small restaurant where Shiro gets them a table and a tasting flight of the local mustards to go with the bottomless table bread. 

While he was in the shower, Shiro had made a promise to himself to try. No matter what is or isn’t or has or hasn’t happened between him and Keith, he owes it to himself and to Adam to see if what’s between  _ them _ has any reasonable future. 

So, he tries. They make small talk over the appetizers, and Shiro takes Adam’s hand across the table, rubbing his thumb across Adam’s knuckles, and it’s almost like when they were first together. He relaxes into it, lets his mouth form into a smile, laughs when Adam tells him about the latest antics at the office. 

The server comes and goes, an attractive young man that Shiro’s never met before, but he only has eyes for Adam. 

They order the daily specials, which are delicious. The wine pairings are lovely, and even though Shiro is dreading the bill when it comes, he forces himself to focus on the moment, to be fully present in the tastes and sounds and smells around him. 

And then Adam asks when he’s coming home.

“Well,” Shiro swirls the wine remaining in his glass. It’s started to snow out the wide windows of the winery, big fat flakes drifting down from a lowering grey sky. “I contacted the partners about going on extended leave.”

“You  _ what _ ?” 

“There’s still so much left to do here, and-”

“You’ve been here  _ four months _ ,” Adam bites out, “there is no believable reason that you couldn’t have wrapped this up and come home in one.”

“What are you saying, Adam,” Shiro bites out, his tone cold. “That I’m lying to you?”

“No!” Adam’s voice is sharp in the mostly empty room. They’re starting to make a scene, but Shiro can’t find it in him to care. “What I’m saying is that you’re lying to yourself, Shiro! That you don’t actually want to come back at all. You’re inventing excuses to keep yourself here because you regret ever having left. And you know what?” Adam’s voice has risen to a shout. “I’m fucking sick of it! I am tired of waiting around to find out if you still care, if you actually want to be with me or not.”

Shiro stands, but Adam stands with him, shoving a finger into Shiro’s shirtfront. “I’m leaving here in five days, and if you’re not on the plane with me then, don’t bother coming back at all.”

“I’m not going to do this with you here,” Shiro growls, low and pissed. “I’m going home. You are welcome to find a hotel. We can talk tomorrow.” He throws a wad of cash on the table and stalks to the door, but when he opens it, his heart sinks with dismay. The snow is now several inches deep and combing down thicker all the time. The winery is down a little canyon road, and there is no way his little, low-slung city car is going to handle the drive back. 

Still, he can’t make himself go back in, not after having just stormed out, so he zips his coat and heads for his car.

\--

Half an hour later, Shiro is shivering away, stubbornly refusing to turn on the heater for longer than a few minutes at a time, when he hears the roar of a truck in the distance. He can’t decide if he’s more embarrassed or relieved at his impending rescue, and sheds a scatter of frustrated tears as he watches Betsy pull up in his rear view mirror.

“Hey,” Keith says, and Shiro rolls down the window. Keith’s face is fully neutral, his arms buried in a thick denim jacket with a flannel lining peeking out. Shiro recognizes it from when Keith’s father used to wear it when they were kids. It fits Keith perfectly now. “Romelle said you might need a ride.”

Shiro gives a wet chuckle. “Yeah,” he agrees, “I don’t think my car’s gonna handle this well.”

Keith just nods. “And your fiance?” 

“Pretty sure he’s an ex-fiance,” Shiro buries his face in his hands. “Pretty sure he has been for a while, really.”

“We shouldn’t just leave him here, ex or no,” Keith says softly, and Shiro nods. It’s one of the things he loves about Keith, and here in the falling snow he can admit it. Keith never gives up, never stops giving, offering, reaching out. Shiro loves it. Loves him.

“I’ll go check,” he says, and climbs out of his car.

“Do you want me to do it?”

“No,” Shiro shakes his head, touched that Keith would even offer. He squares his shoulders and heads for the door. “It’s my mess; I’ll handle it.”

He can see it’s not needed as soon as he opens the door. The server - young, dark, and objectively very handsome - is leaning across the bar with his fingers interlaced with Adam’s. There’s a glass of wine at each elbow, and Adam’s face is flushed with excitement.

“Adam,” Shiro calls, keeping his voice carefully even. “Do you need a ride?”

“I can take care of him, sir,” the server calls back, and Adam shrugs sheepishly and waves him off even as he flushes an even darker pink. 

Shiro just nods once and turns away, heading out the door and into the storm.

\--

He starts to cry when they’re halfway there, big, heaving, shuddering sobs that come tearing out of him. Keith reaches over to put a hand on his knee, but can’t afford to take his eyes off the road.

“I don’t know why,” Shiro gasps, “I’m this upset!” He rubs his face on the inside collar of his shirt. “This isn’t even,” he sobs, “that much of a surprise!”

“It’s okay, Shiro,” Keith says, voice soft and low, and Shiro sobs some more. “It’s okay.”

Keith doesn’t take him home. Or rather, he does, but Keith takes him to his own home, not to Shiro’s. He guides Shiro up the same steps where Shiro stumbled before, and pulls him into his attic apartment. 

Shiro hadn’t had much of a chance to look around before, too distracted by the drink in his veins and Keith in his arms, but he looks now as Keith wraps him in a blanket and shoves him onto the loveseat. He’s still sobbing, but he feels dissociated from his body and the way it’s shaking, shuddering in the grip of emotion. 

“Here,” Keith says, and pushes a warm mug into his hands. “You need to drink this.” He settles the blanket more tightly around Shiro’s shoulders as Shiro obediently takes a drink. It’s chocolate, rich and sweet, bursting across his tongue and erasing the remembrance of wine from his mouth. “Can you talk to me about why you’re upset?”

Shiro wipes again at the wetness on his face, and Keith leans over to snag a tissue box and set it beside Shiro, then kneels at his feet. His hands trace soothing patterns on the insides of Shiro’s knees, and his face is open and kind.

“My grandfather’s gone,” Shiro sobs, “and I’m never going to see him again.” 

“I’m so sorry, Shiro,” Keith whispers, his hands warm and firm on Shiro’s knees. 

“Jiji’s gone, and now Adam’s gone, and I’ve spent the last decade building a life that I don’t even know if I want anymore!” Shiro throws up his hands. He’s hiccupping now and feels ridiculous, but he can’t bring himself to care. A dam has broken within him and everything is pouring out; he’s helpless to stop it and it’s liberating. “I don’t know what I want, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and Keith,  _ god _ , what if…”

Keith stares up at him, huge eyes violet in the evening light.

“What if I’d never broken up with you?” Shiro whispers, and Keith bites his lip. 

“We can’t know,” Keith says finally, reaching up to pull the blanket more securely around Shiro’s shoulders from where his gesturing has shaken it loose. Shiro’s not shaking anymore, but the tenderness of the gesture undoes his fragile peace, and tears begin to leak down his face again. “If you had stayed, or even if you had come back, who can say what would have happened. Maybe you would have hated it. Maybe you would have grown resentful.” Keith shrugs. “Maybe it would have been fine, but I don’t think so. You needed to go live your own life before you could find anything here.”

“I’m so sorry, Keith,” Shiro strokes a finger down the curve of Keith’s cheek, his voice full of everything he’s been holding back for four months, for ten years. “I’m so,  _ so _ , sorry.”

Keith just smiles up at him, climbing up to position himself next to Shiro on the couch, pulling Shiro into his arms. 

“It’s okay, Shiro,” he murmurs, and Shiro buries his face in Keith’s shoulder. “We’re okay.”

\--

When he wakes up, it’s with thick, dark hair in his nose and a warm body curled into his own.

He lets himself drift in the pleasure of memory, remembrance of last night; of Thanksgiving and days when they were still in school; of every lunch they’ve had together over the last months. It washes over him like the tide, pulling out the grief that’s been so much of a caught anchor on him since his grandfather died.

“You look pleased,” Keith rumbles from below his arm, and Shiro redirects his attention happily. 

“I was thinking,” Shiro tells him, “of buying that cafe next to the bookstore. Then we could knock out the wall and have a nice pairing for customers.” He watches the hope dawning across Keith’s face. “And maybe I could do pro-bono work for the disability advocacy group in town.”

“You mean it?” Keith whispers, and Shiro’s heart hurts again for all he’s done to hurt this perfect human whom he loves so much. “You’re staying.”   


“I’m staying,” Shiro grins, and Keith pulls him down and kisses him.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> fulfills the bingo prompts of: HS Sweetheart + Car Trouble/Fender Bender + free space + Life Lessons Learned + Bookstore
> 
> Bonus round: Ex shows up + Unexpected Weather Event + Big Happy Family + Ranch Home + meddling friends/family + + winery
> 
> Infidelity tag: technically, Shiro and Adam are still engaged when he and Keith hook up. things are not good between them, and Adam's given Shiro an ultimatum, but they have not technically had a "it's ok to sleep with other people" convo.


End file.
